Ever wonder what happened to those plastic bags you recycled? Some of them may have ended up in Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno’s latest installation. “Becoming Aerosolar” is Saraceno’s debut exhibition in Austria, currently on view at the 21er Haus art museum in Vienna through August 30th. The exhibit highlights a series of sculptures and objects inspired by how we experience our environment – but it is Saraceno’s “flying museum” on display that takes this exploration to new heights.
Cloud Cities (2006)
Poetic Cosmos of the Breath (2007)
This is not the first time that the artist’s work has gone aerial. He is well known for his otherworldly environments that imagine sustainable models for future habitats. Saraceno’s tent-like inflated installations have allowed people to walk on air and wander into magical, opalescent domes. In 2006, he presented an idea for floating “Cloud Cities,” large interconnected stainless steel pods that contemplated mid-air living. The artist’s latest work was created out of thousands of recycled plastic bags that float upwards like a hot-air balloon when heated by the sun. Saraceno’s main endeavour is to speculate how we can incorporate knowledge into living choices that don’t hurt our planet. Here, he presents a unique way for homes to harness the sun’s light for energy. Although his proposal is a conceptual one and doesn’t address functionality, it does make one think about how our energy resources circulate.
German artist 
Chinese-born, London-based artist 
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